HMAS Perth survivors mark special Anzac Day

Only ten men who survived the sinking of HMAS Perth off Java in 1942 are still with us and this year's Anzac Day march in Melbourne held special significance for them.

Transcript

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: One dark night off the coast of Java in 1942, two Allied ships were caught off-guard and forced to face the invading Japanese battle fleet alone.

The Australian warships HMAS Perth and USS Houston fought gallantly against the odds, but both were torpedoed and sank within 30 minutes of each other. 1,100 Australian and American soldiers were lost at sea.

After 71 years, only 10 of the men from HMAS Perth who survived the battle are still alive and today's ANZAC Day ceremonies had special significance for them, as Lisa Whitehead reports.

LISA WHITEHEAD, REPORTER: The young men who set sail on HMAS Perth over 70 years ago are now too frail to make the long ANZAC Day march to Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance. But Perth men Fred Laslett, Basil Hayler and Alan Guthrie were determined to be here today.

FRED LASLETT: Well worth the effort of getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning.

LISA WHITEHEAD: To onlookers there was nothing special about the presence in today's march of the banner of the American warship USS Houston. But to those who served on the Perth, it meant a great deal.

TARA BOLTON: The HMAS Perth and the USS Houston fought a mighty battle together and they both sunk together. A lot of the men survived were prisoner of war together. Brings a tear to my eye. It's wonderful.

LISA WHITEHEAD: That comradeship has lasted more than seven decades and USS Houston survivors sent the ship's banner to be paraded today alongside the Perth's.

BILLY WRIGHT, US NAVY: First time that the Huston banner has been marched in an ANZAC parade on Australian soil, so it's a big honour to be able to be a part of it.

MELVIN DAVIS, US ARMY: It's very humbling, it's very humbling. We're all brothers at arms, brother and sisters at arms, so just to be here and represent my country is just a significant honour.

LISA WHITEHEAD: In 1942 the two Allied ships, the Perth and the Houston, were attacked by a Japanese battle fleet in the Sunda Strait off the coach of the Dutch East Indies. They were hopelessly outnumbered and outmanoeuvred.

David Manning was on board HMAS Perth that night, a green 18-year-old cadet midshipman. After only seven weeks at sea with the ship, he'd seen his first action against the Japanese Navy the day before.

DAVID MANNING, HMAS PERTH SURVIVOR: That first action, which was called the Battle of Java Sea, in seven hours it became - from a fleet of 14 ships, it became a fleet of two ships. And Perth and Houston, they were the only two left as fighting ships.

LISA WHITEHEAD: Those two ships came under attack again the following night. HMAS Perth went down first, then the Houston caught fire and sank.

DAVID MANNING: I'd climbed over the guard rails and I have no recollection of an explosion or anything like that, it was just - suddenly I was corkscrewing in the water. I was a non-swimmer, but I found myself in very close proximity to a floating net which was a life-saving device from the ship and it was pretty well full of people. But I found a spot to hang on to.

LISA WHITEHEAD: After nine hours in the water, David Manning and the other survivors clambered into a lifeboat.

DAVID MANNING: We stayed in this boat collecting more and more both Perth and Houston survivors and we finished up with a very loaded boat and attempted to get ashore.

LISA WHITEHEAD: 1,100 men, including the two ships' captains were lost at sea. 700 or so survived.

And your parents had kept all the newspaper clippings from the time when the ship went down?

DAVID MANNING: That's right. Yes, there it is. That's the original telegram that they got from Navy.

LISA WHITEHEAD: But surviving one catastrophic event only precipitated another. The Perth and Houston survivors were captured by the Japanese and sent to prison camps in Singapore and on the Thai-Burma Railway. David Manning never forgot Houston crewman Billy Stewart.

DAVID MANNING: Bill was very badly burned in the sinking of the ship. There was nothing we could do other than to talk to him. Many years later when I went over to Houston, I walked into the Houston memorial room at the University of Houston and a voice said "Manning" and it was Bill Stewart. And I got a kick out of that. 40-odd years later, he remembered the moments we spent together in the cell.

LISA WHITEHEAD: The special bond between the two crews formed in the harrowing days and weeks after the battle has endured. USS Houston is the only foreign ship to have a tree planted in its honour at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance, an honour reciprocated in the United States.

DAVID MANNING: The plaque to Perth is probably the only foreign ship in Arlington National Cemetery. So, I think those two little stories regarding trees epitomise the relationship between the two ships.

LISA WHITEHEAD: In David Manning's hometown of Ballarat where he marched today is the memorial to Australia's prisoners of war. On it are are the names of Manning's fellow Perth survivors who were also held captive in prisoner-of-war camps.

Fred Laslett is one of them. He's now 94. From camps in Java and Japan, Laslett wrote weekly letters to his then fiancee on cigarette papers. He described in detail the events of the battle and the men's capture.

The letters were never sent, but kept hidden from the Japanese guards. Fred Laslett brought them home with him at the end of the War when the full story of that night in the Sunda Strait could finally be told.

FRED LASLETT: A minute later, abandon ship was piped and to our despondency we saw the Houston catch fire.

LISA WHITEHEAD: Patty Wright is the author of books on the men of HMAS Perth and the Thai-Burma Railway. She had the idea of bringing the Houston banner to Australia.

PATTY WRIGHT, AUTHOR: The men are ageing, they're leaving us. We'll be making something special for them with this banner, with Houston.